Spiral Knights itself is a largely Free to Play MMO whose business model relies on Energy to complete various tasks. As part of the drive for profits, Sega and Three Rings have released paid DLC in the form of Operation Crimson Hammer, a new set of levels culminating in a boss battle. Here I'm going to examine if this content is worth your money. Do note that as I am reviewing DLC, I'm simply going to assume you've already read my Spiral Knights review. I don't really want to go over all the basics again.

Let's address the company claim first, because this is a peculiar element. There is a claim that you unlock "three different versions" of the content, but the truth of that depends on how far you'd extend the definition of "different". About the only difference you do get between the different tiers for this content is a change of the enemy ranks. For example, the Tenderfoot Thwackers of Tier 1 are replaced by the Darkfang Thwackers in Tier 3. Combined with the changes to damage calculations between tiers this does allow for a noticeable difficulty scaling, as storming through the easiest doesn't mean you'll manage the same on the hardest setting. However, calling them separate versions seems like a rather underhanded way of implying that the challenges and layouts change between tiers. This, of course, is actually not the case.

So now I've finished with that complaint let's examine what we do actually get for our money. Well, we finally have a gremlin themed boss stratum to play around in that consists of 4 regular levels and a 5th smaller level that ends in the boss fight. There's a lot of interesting backstory involved as you find yourself tasked with assisting in an attack on a gremlin base, giving us a glimpse of the NPC military might of the knights that landed on Cradle (and yes, expect your group to do most of the work) and an insight into the gremlins that cause so many problem. This helps give some clarity as to why some gremlins have fled and taken refuge in Emberlight too.

You call that mini? Geez the full version is like Mishtram length times two.

My thoughts on the DLC;

Short version:

Worth it for the sale price tag, dunno about full price.

Fun boss fight

OP Rewards

Does not bode well

Long version:I agree calling it a pack is a little silly. Same rewards, maps, and enemies across all tiers, just stat-tweaked. That should be a requirement of what every DLC meets. Tier-specific DLC is definitely something I would like to never, ever see. On the bright side it is a nice setting for DLC. Not wholly story-important (looking at you Mass Effect 3), but does shed light on the goblins and what they...do in their free time or something.

Going to get the bad news out of the way before I talk about how much I liked this DLC. That bad news is just one word, but sadly it is one of the worst possible words that could be used to describe any DLC ever. Overpowered. If a player fancies themselves a gunslinger, they need the T3 hat from the DLC. There's no way around it. Not having that hat will pretty much floor you. Both in DPS and in Life. It gives statistic bonuses no other gunslinger helmet gives, not only that but these are the best statistics for gunners anyway. Fire resist for Firestorm Citadel (FSC), and Cooldown Reduction for like every gun ever. Because of the balancing of item rewards from this DLC, I can't help but give it a F minus grade. Pay-to-win DLC is never a good sign, and just wrecks everything. For special, exclusive rewards, the items should be cosmetic or collectors pieces. Nothing of actual power. With how item balance works in SK, even non-OP equipment shouldn't be locked off as variety makes up a lot of the meta. Cosmetic Accessories and Armor, Zero-Star items that just look really nice, unique enemies, all cool. But if OOO does the same thing in their next DLC packs as they did here, I can guarantee it'll destroy their game. That's something I'd really not like to see happen, as this game is really fun. So, spoiler alert, because of what this DLC pack means to the progression of content releases in SK, I really have to give it a fail grade. Now, if you take out the rewards and what they mean for the game out the picture completely, and just grade content, then things start looking pretty peachy.

Felt that I received my money's worth in content, $3-ish USD (it's sale price) seems like a nice settling point for something of that length. The full $6 would have been a harder sale on me. I would have expected actually different missions rather than stat tweaks for that amount. The content itself was a blast to run through with friends, even though it has the same latency issues as Ironclaw Munitions Factory (IMF). Actually has the lag because of the same reasons as IMF, which makes me wonder if OOO ever actually plan to fix that. Thankfully the boss floor doesn't have any of those issues, so his fight doesn't get messed with much. Was a really fun fight, even when I had no clue what was going on. Though a bit of tweaking to the beginning and end of it could have gone a long way. When you first walk up to the boss chamber, the camera pans up to show you what's ahead, hoping you notice where the boss is perched. I didn't notice the first time around, mostly because it's really the first time in the entire game where that's ever something of concern. Giving him an introductory scene, such as with Vanaduke of FSC, would have gone a long way. One thing he does have in common with Vanaduke (as well as IMF's Roarmulus Twins), is the fight format. There are essentially two parts to the boss fight, split up into five phases. First you shake him off his pillar, then you damage him, then you shake him off again, then you damage him, then his pillar comes up again. However, during that final phase, while he does jump back up, he immediately comes down. And because he's not big and bulky enough to really spot out of the blue in T3, it's something easy to miss until he blows somebody up. The same is essentially true for the two other times he descends, he can be kind of hard to pick out for a second if you have a ton of adds still alive. Giving him a more prominent drop animation, maybe making it a flashy attack (he does have a rocket strapped to his back), would have again, gone a long way. Overall still a very fun fight, probably one of my favorites of the game.

The entire run I'd have to say is really easy, the T3 version wasn't really any harder than running IMF, which is T2 content. However floormat pubs will definitely throw a bigger wrench in your plans than most T2 content (they're actually a bigger problem in IMF). Running with people you know don't blow, will make it seem like a very nice experience, not much challenge, but definitely a good time. Running with floormats, will be, well running with floormats. They'll die to the invisible ninja mobs, you will sigh heavily, revive them for free Heat, and continue with your day hoping you didn't actually need the HP you just gave out.

If OOO gets item balancing at least somewhere in the ballpark of right next time they do DLC with content as solid as this, I would definitely give it a thumbs up. The content of this DLC is really quite good. The problem is just that OP DLC items, are OP DLC items. So as I wrote somewhere above, this DLC definitely earns a very heavy-hearted:

I can't say I find the difficulty of the T3 version on par with IMF. I mean, I can solo IMF but there's no way I'd solo this T3 mission. So far I haven't played the content with the "upper ranks" of my guild, but I did play with good people and we almost wiped at one point during the boss fight. I feel part of this stems from it being new and we'll get better but it's still hard to imagine it going as smoothly as an IMF run.

But yeah, the OP items are a big problem. Especially in Lockdown where players will have a huge advantage with them. The problem wouldn't exist if it were possible to obtain the dlc content ingame without paying.

In terms of difficulty the boss fight was a little harder than IMF, but the levels were easier. What I found makes the boss fight easier, is bringing gear similar to a Vana run. a Blitz Needle will like, two-shot that middle generator. Then have dark weaponry for the boss himself (I used my shadow alchemer). Makes the fight go really smoothly so long as somebody picks up adds.